THE PROBLEM

To achieve efficient healthcare in an increasingly demanding marketplace, the ability to get actionable information is crucial. Medical diagnostic assays currently count in the multi-millions per year and per country, and differences in tissues types at the cellular level are critically important for accuracy in results. Conventional organic dyes and other types of fluorophores are currently used for luminescence in assays by researchers, but they have limitations sometimes preventing clear distinctions in reading the data. Broad data sets can tend to obscure patterns that might become clear by removing these uncertainties.

Blood assays to determine medical conditions and diseases are typically collected and sent to a local lab and placed in an array for analysis. Turn-around time for taking the sample, transporting, conducting the analysis, and responding to the patient’s doctor can take days to weeks. A new method that Doctors can use in their office during an appointment to facilitate ordering treatments if necessary would require a test format that can be accomplished simply and relatively instantaneously, and with the highest levels of accuracy.

THE SOLUTION

Tetrapod quantum dots address this issue well for biochemical detection and biomedical device application by providing a broad array of colors, which translates to increased number of pieces in the data set, and also precise tune-ability and stability for high contrast and distinctive identification certainty. For biochemical detection, most typically in a rapid assay that provides a breadth of data in a single test kit, Quantum Materials has begun conversations with biotech researchers and companies needing narrow color emissions to provide clear identification when identifying particular targets by attaching to the desired organism or cell type when specifically functionalized.

Tetrapod quantum dots are being used to create tailored light for investigation of tissue and to better provide useful data to researchers and practitioners that has not been easily discernible until now. Differences between healthy and suspect tissue often can be better identified if the available fluorophores' color combination is engineered for either true representation of color, or emphasized in the visible spectrum depending on the tissue type. Tetrapod quantum dots provide the depth of data necessary to highlight subtle differences that researchers and healthcare professionals need to efficiently understand disease and devise effective treatments.

As part of this effort, Quantum Materials is developing a suitable TQD film for medical devices while maintaining consistency in both uniformity and scalability by R2R printing processes. Such a film can be made into highly accurate and inexpensive test strips for handheld diagnostic assay Point-of-Care (POC) or Lab-on-a-Chip Devices. Two under-utilized methods for using quantum dots in near-instantaneous diagnostic assays are called FRET (Forster Resonance Energy Transfer) and BRET (Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer) when quantum dots light up when an attached biomarker finds its target. By using QMC quantum dots, one POC device can be programmed for any number of diagnostic tests that can be accomplished in the doctor’s office. Expensive lab tests would become inexpensive ubiquitous tests that are accurate as well as affordable, making medical treatment more available and timely.